Making a Revolution, 1908 mainly has the Bektaşi in mind. Although ruthlessly suppressed in 1826
along with the Janissaries, the Bektaşi made a comeback by the beginning
of Abdülhamid II’s reign and were the strongest Sufi order opposing the
regime.^49 Irène Melikoff notes that Young Turks, precursors to the CUP,
were sympathetic to the Bektaşi, because they considered the Sufi order to
be liberal.^50 A letter from a revolutionary asserts that a number of Young
Turks were Bektaşi.^51 The syncretistic tendencies of the Bektaşi matched
the progressive ideas of the Young Turks, and Bektaşi were affiliated with
Freemasons, who let the CUP use their lodges after 1906. After the revo-
lution of 1908 , revolutionary officers visited Bektaşi lodges to pay trib-
ute; Bektaşi publications were again permitted; newspapers attacking the
Bektaşi were closed; and new Bektaşi lodges were opened.^52 The CUP also
had a relationship with the Mevlevi order. Mevlevi lodges distributed CUP
propaganda, Mevlevi sheikhs hosted CUP meetings at their homes, and
other sheikhs were exiled together with Young Turks for their activism.^53
The Sufi role in revolutionary politics was significant, but it was the
Freemasons who were more important in opposition politics than the
CUP before 1895. Freemasons played such an active role between 1870
and 1918 that the assassins of an Ottoman statesman in 1913 claimed that
“their aim was to recapture power that had too long been in the hands of
the Freemasons.”^54 After all, the Freemason Sultan Murad V, envisioned
as an enlightened sultan who would unite Turks and Greeks, had come to
power in a coup d’état facilitated by Freemasons in 1876.^55 The nucleus of
the Young Turks sprang from the members of a Masonic lodge established
by those who had brought that sultan to the throne. Until 1902 , Ottoman
Freemasons operated their own political organizations under other names
and distributed political tracts on liberty and freedom across Europe.^56
Thereafter they supported the CUP, whose leader Ahmet Rıza’s inner
circle included many prominent Freemason leaders.^57 All the founding
members, but one, of the Ottoman Freedom Society in Salonika (which
became the internal headquarters when it merged with the Paris-based
CUP, which served as external headquarters) were Freemasons or became
Freemasons, and were members of either the Italian Obedience of Mace-
donia Risorta or the French Obedience of Véritas.^58 The CUP was based
in Salonikan Masonic lodges, and Freemasons offered Young Turks safe
houses. Freemasons declared themselves “the main force” behind the 1908
revolution, supported the CUP in power, and thrived after Abdülhamid II
was deposed.^59